Speakers

SPEAKER: Allen Downey

Professor of Computer Science @Olin College

Professor of Computer Science at Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts, and the author of Think Python, Think Bayes, Think Stats, and several other books related to computer science and data science. Previously he taught at Wellesley College and Colby College, and in 2009 was a Visiting Scientist at Google, Inc. Allen has a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley and B.S. and M.S. degrees from MIT. He writes a blog about Bayesian statistics and related topics called Probably Overthinking It. Several of his books are published by O’Reilly Media and all are available under free licenses from Green Tea Press.

Eric Ma is an investigator at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. He defended his ScD thesis in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT, where he used network statistical methods to study influenza evolution and ecology. Eric has been an active member of the Boston Python community since 2012. He’s given tutorials at Python-centric and data science conferences and guided four undergraduate students in his research group on computational research projects. He believes in using open data, open science, and open source tools to ensure the long-term integrity of his scientific work.